It doesn't have to be all or nothing with a startup

Startup mythology demands that to create something great, you need superhuman sacrifices. You need to work for no pay, you need to put in 120 hours/week, you need to preferably sleep under the desk and live off pizza as a sole form of nutrient. As a result, you need to abandon your family and risk life without insurance.

Hogwash!

We’ve repeated this story so many times that it’s starting to wear a little thin, but here it goes again: Basecamp was created with 10 hours/week of programming time and as a 3rd or 4th project alongside paying customers for the designers over the course of about 6 months. In other words, we didn’t drop everything we had to create Basecamp, and you don’t have to either.

There are plenty of startup ideas that can be done without millions in funding, thousands of man hours, and dramatic risk. But I can excuse people from failing to see them when blinded by press and popular opinion. Everywhere you turn it’s stories about how ever-younger entrepreneurs with nothing to lose are defying all odds and making mortal sacrifices to reach their impossibly unlikely goals and succeeding.

It didn’t turn into a smash hit overnight either. We ran Basecamp for a year alongside our other obligations before it was doing well enough to pay all the bills and afford our full-time attention. Most good businesses didn’t become great ones within the 12-18 months that the poster boys of the startup lottery did.

So don’t despair, just start small. Reserve a couple of nights per week, a Sunday morning here, and a day from vacation time there. It’s never been cheaper or faster to build a web startup, it’s never been more possible to do it as a side-business.

That still doesn’t make it easy. Odds are you’ll fail. Just as odds are you’ll fail if you take millions of VC money, hire a staff of twenty, and spend 120 hours/week on it. But if lost opportunity is a risk when you try, it’s a guarantee if you don’t.

I think muxtape is a great example of a startup that found success through after hours coding and working with what they had.

Maybe he’s had late hours now that its exploded and the servers are getting hammered but it seems like it started simple enough in the beginning.

cubiclegrrl

on 11 Jun 08

Definitely don’t sacrifice-or even stint-on your family and relationships. Who else will take up your slack with that sink of dishes or load of laundry that it was really your turn to do? Or give your handiwork the safety net of another set of eyeballs? Or be your sounding board? Or just listen to you vent?

I built WebEvent back in the day part-time until it had enough traction where I could focus on it full-time and eventually hire a couple of people. We did end up taking money from the VC folx but we did so because we wanted access to technology that we could not afford ourselves.

Now, this time around, with VendorCity, our business-to-business recommendation and word-of-mouth referral engine, myself and two partners have been building it while continuing our “day jobs”. It isn’t easy, but we are about to launch in Boston and New Hampshire next week and the interest has been very high and it has been completely self-funded.

So, there are times where external investment money is very helpful but many great small businesses are started with just part-time efforts building something that people want.

While making extreme sacrifices is not mandatory, I think it is pretty common. This post sounds like it requires no effort to make a successful business, and that’s pretty deceiving, you will have to make an effort, and you will have to make sacrifices. I started my company about 5 years ago and got invested in it full time. It has been really really hard, but luckily it worked.
It is different from your experiences because you have web businesses and I sell physical stuff. But this post is oversimplifying the process.
I think most startups fail because people think it is going to be easier than it actually is. Basecamp might have taken 10 hours a week, but it was created by the same person that created RoR. I don’t think a lot of people can do that so you can’t apply this to everyone.

GeeIWonder

on 11 Jun 08

Agreed. Too many people get caught up in the hero/genius myth.

Swagner

on 11 Jun 08

Since it was not the complete focus of the company, how did you market the product in the early days? It seems building, maintaing Basecamp, along with building and growing the other parts of the company would take time instead of marketing?

Any suggestions on where to focus your marketing in the early days of part-time company building?

DHH

on 11 Jun 08

Gustavo, creating a successful business is never easy and I concur that some sacrifices will be required along the way. But there’s a very long way from that and to the defeatist notion that it’s impossible to start a startup without giving up everything (family, time, money, healthcare).

Lots of businesses are started on the side. We did that and we’re sharing the story as inspiration for those who might wish to do the same.

And to some extend, starting a web business is special and unlike many other domains. Which is what people should take advantage of. We certainly did.

DHH

on 11 Jun 08

Swagner, the approach we used was to talk to our core audience through the blog (but remember, back then, SvN had 4,000 RSS readers, not ~90K), share what we were doing and learning, building interest and good will.

For other businesses or domains, that might well not work. I don’t think there’s one marketing formula you can apply successfully across all branches. We summed up a lot of our ideas on promotion in Getting Real, though.

Completely agreed. And a corollary (which you have pointed out before) is that the end-result of starting a company doesn’t have to be marketplace domination. It’s possible to start small and stay small.

Now if we could create a better way to fund these “start small and stay small” businesses, then we could make it less necessary to create businesses funded by economic models based on growth (e.g. venture capital-based large multiple exit strategies).

I lurk here a lot, and have seen several references to “many great startup ideas.” I am wondering what the list of those ideas would be if you guys just rattled them off the top of your head. Where do you see the opportunities in the market.

I’m not sure how accessible this advice is to the non-DHH’s amongst us, which I imagine is the majority.

If you’re capable of writing the best web framework in the world in your spare time, chances are you can also create a business at the same time. But that’s not really useful if you’re not.

While I don’t think excessive, over-the-top effort is good, I don’t think most people have much chance of getting a startup off the ground in 10 hours a week. Linus Torvalds can, for sure. DHH can. Guido Van Rossum. Matz. Yeah, all these people can get a startup off the ground in ten hours a week. But although they’re all great goals to aim for, they’re not necessarily good practical examples.

As you said, you have to build on your strengths. Your strength (DHH) is an extraordinary programming ability. Other people (even good programmers) have different strengths (perhaps determination, or even an ability to work hard without burning out), and so they have to plan their business differently.

Prakash S

on 11 Jun 08

People’s way of dealing with uncertainty in startups is probably to work harder, which typically translates to working longer and shelving everything but work.

THe other challenge is the type of startups you mention don’t get as much press, unfortunately.

Maybe what we need is a Founders at work with interviews from folks of companies that DIDN’t take VC funding.

Martial

on 11 Jun 08

The inspiration of 37signals is one reason I’m building a new company while still working full time at the old. It can be done, so I’m doing it too.

During the dot-com days of the late 90’s, I worked at 2 startups, watched them burn through millions of dollars, try to create a product that included everything under the sun, have their employees work 90+ hours per week, and then fail.

What a great learning experience that was for me.

Now I am starting my own business, while continuing to work full time, just working 10+ hours per week and using my own money to fund it.

I purchased Getting Real about two months ago and have been following the ideas and guidelines in that book every since.

Thanks to David and 37 Signals for changing the way things are done.

someone

on 11 Jun 08

I guess the main problem most people who continue to have normal day jobs would have with running a business on the side woudl be the need for availability for customer support. Yes, there are things you can do to minimize the need for support (making simple software), but you do need to answer customer emails in a timely manner, which doesn’t jive very well with a traditional 9-5 routine.

So, maybe as an intermediate step, you could start freelancing/consulting and be your own boss first before you become a micro ISV.

Building Smibs while running Plainpeak has been a tremendous and sometimes challenging experience. We’ve been working for over a year to build our network platform and the first applications. While I spend part of my daytime and a lot of my spare time on it I also hired Forrest with my own money as a full time software engineer. Making him a co-founder reduced the financial risk slightly and increased the chances for success and long-term stability dramatically.

While we’re working hard and are shifting more and more resources towards Smibs, we’re not a suicide mission and are able to survive comfortably without a big bang success – which in turn comforts our early clients.

A couple of days ago we’ve launched into private beta and boy it feels good to get the first positive feedback.

I wish everyone that takes this path the best of luck and I am certainly wiling to share my experiences in greater detail. Just search for my name on twitter or visit our blog

Thanks and cheers to 37 for the bold advice despite all the current lottery frenzy

I completely agree as well. I work with three other guys that have infinitely more than enough talent and will power to do something like this. I think it’s a matter of taking the leap and going for it.

V

Matt

on 11 Jun 08

Inspiring words…thanks David.

ML

on 11 Jun 08

you do need to answer customer emails in a timely manner, which doesn’t jive very well with a traditional 9-5 routine.

Check out Don’t waste time on problems you don’t have yet [Getting Real]. Worry about the nonstop flow of customer emails once it starts happening. In the meanwhile, set up an autoresponder that explains the situation and respond as quickly as you can.

Is it a sin to be dedicated?

No, but a lot of people use “dedication” to work to cover up other sins (e.g. a bad business idea, getting off on working nonstop, problems with other areas of your life that you’re running away from, etc.) Just make sure you’re doing it for the right reasons.

I like what you say here, and I like it that you’ve oversimplified the message for the purposes of argument/evangelism. It’s a useful tonic to the oversimplified and false notion that you must overwork to get anywhere.

OF COURSE building a business - any business - requires dedication. (And hey, “V”, he’s not saying it’s a sin to be dedicated.) But that doesn’t mean it requires every waking moment of your life.

By the way, I often find parallels between artistic endeavors and business entrepreneurship, and I see it here, too: plenty of would-be novelists, composers, filmmakers, etc say they would create their magnum opus “if only” they could work on it full-time, in isolation, etc. But in fact many outstanding creators have executed fine work in short bursts (Jack Kerouac), during odd moments of the day (Wallace Stevens), or in the wee hours (Anthony Trollope).

There are many paths up the mountain.

Jawa Buddhavarapu

on 11 Jun 08

I agree with Tim. We work with all the constraints that we have , especially, time and money, and trying to optimize our resources. Constraints in some ways are necessary to bring out the best in people. Great innovations are born out of constraints.

I think such an experiment would be great PR and provide tons of fodder for another book…not mention add more evidence to, hopefully, support your theory.

Adam

on 11 Jun 08

for point.each do |sarcasm|

David, you’re wrong.

If I can create a startup without risking it all, I don’t have an excuse anymore for not starting one. If I’m the only thing holding me back, then I am in control of my own destiny and I just won’t accept that responsibility. I’m going to blame it on the Republicans until something better comes along.

Likewise, if it takes a year or so before my startup will even pay the bills for me to be spending full time on it, I can’t have my delusional fantasy of overnight success. Who wants to create a startup if it isn’t worth a million dollars overnight?

And that brings up another good point – once created, this startup is supposed to mean that I don’t need to work. You worked fulltime on Basecamp a year after it was created? The whole point of building a startup is to create something of no intrinsic value that you can sell to some idiot who thinks My Space and Twitter will be around in a century.

Sorry, you’re wrong. Startups are supposed to be instant success after which no work need be done and give me so much money that I don’t know what to do with it. This just sounds like work – creative, rewarding, respected, fun work, but work just the same. That’s not what a startup is supposed to be.

Cameron Caine

You can keep telling the story until you’re blue in the face, but they’re never going to listen until the bubble bursts again and they have no other choice.

I’m listening, I’m sure one or two other people are here and there, but the reality is, you’re pitting economics against mythology – the math brain against the myth brain. You’re throwing marshmellows at a tank.

“It doesn’t have to be all or nothing with a startup” I couldn’t agree more with your statements. The only problem is the story you
linked does not illustrate your point about young people making mortal sacrifices for startups. Sure the startup team were young, but nothing in the article suggested they made major sacrifices. It seems like the only sacrifice was spending less time playing and more time working. I think more work is the typical thing to do when you want to start a business. Great post nonetheless.

I have a management position in the technology department of a decent sized company. I’ve been kind of following the path suggested here for a site that I add to in my spare time (of course written in RoR). Really, I think of this as a hobby, not a “start up”. I don’t expect to make money from it.

For instance, due to my totally dopey versioning habits (or lack there of) I accidentally blew away some files needed for a few of the features that show up on the main page. Because I only have a few hours a week to work on the site, I simply pulled those features off the site. One of my users posted that they like the site better now without the extra features! What a harsh but valuable lesson: “simple is good”, “less is more”.

Cheers, Rick

Spispopd

on 11 Jun 08

I found myself working “fulltime” on my startup, though I would have liked to do it in my spare time, because basically ALL employers I’ve encountered expect you to sign some dumb all-your-thoughts-are-belong-to-us I”P” agreement.

Nothing is holding back society more than patent law right now. I certainly don’t want or need a patent for my work – in fact its value increases the more people use it, therefore patenting would be actively stupid.

Melvin Ram

on 11 Jun 08

Hey David,

You inspired an experiment that I’m doing right now. The challenge is to see if I can start and launch a company in 48 hours (coding time).

I’m also currently taking 3 hard-core science classes during the summer. This leaves me a max of 3-4 hrs a day, two or three days out of the week to work on this experiment. I’m at about 44 hrs right now… and I’m surprised by how much I’ve really gotten done… particularly with the help of Rails.

Anyway, I’d like to send ya link to it when it’s live to get your honest feedback. May I send it to you via email? Should I send it to ya loudthinking.com email?

Ed

on 11 Jun 08

@Giles + @DHH

I’m a realist so I’d have to agree with you.

Americans are naive. They may have the smartest Education institutions in the world, but they’re still naive and greedy.

Every time I visited a local bookstore (be it Barnes & Noble, Borders or even Chapters[canadian]), the Self-Help, the Business, the Marketing and the Economy sections are filled with books that preach the same message:

What they’re (the authors) not telling their readers is how to “Accept Life”.

A friend of mine recently purchased a “For Dummies: Personal Finance” (Canadian version). I borrowed the book out of curiosity. I was surprised to see the author said that “Family is #1”. Lots of their advices are more down-to-earth, how-to manage money wisely, don’t play with fire, bla bla bla. It’s very different than most US-authored books.

zataraman

on 11 Jun 08

nutricient? dispair? common. You write great posts in general but you could pay a little more attention to spelling!

I agree!!! ShellShadow is my 3rd startup in 20 years. The startup I ran through most of the 90s was patternWare, which was btw the world’s first full-stack app framework, in Smalltalk ;). I started it pre-dot-com boom and grew it as a traditional entrepreneur with only my initial customers for “funding”. I made quite a bit of money off patternWare. My second was dot-com boom funding and guess what, it crashed and burned when the investment money ran dry and I couldn’t afford the burn rate.ShellShadow goes back to basics. Its self-funded, distributed tech team (all contractors), and I know the growth will be organic and somewhat slow and I’m prepared for it. I know it will be successful simply because its a useful and unique tool.
I also know it will be successful because of how I define success. I don’t have huge dollar signs in my eyes as I’m comfortable with less money and not taking on VC too soon allows me to keep the eval low. This method also allows me to have a life and be a father to my 3 year old son.
I do not believe that getting large VC funds from “an idea” and going after market share first and eschewing revenue (or believing ad dollars are a meaningful long term plan) is “entrepreneur-ship”. Its some new animal that is a legitimate but is such a “lottery” approach that I don’t care to classify it as being a tech entrepreneur.
David, next time you pass by the Hancock tower in your adoptive home town, you can think of me as I was living a block from it when I started patternWare . Maybe one day I’ll get to show you the world’s first-full stack app framework and you can see how similar in terms of conceptual integrity and meta-programming it is to Rails ;).

However Marketing and Sales is the big challenge.
You can have the best web service, all the funding, but miss out on marketing and thus have no revenue.

If you put 1 hour in application building and testing, put at least 1 hour in marketing or sales.
If you don’t tell the public, the public won’t become customer.

37 Signals had a head start in marketing thanks to their Ruby involvement, having a community of followers.

If you don’t have a head start or a community to address to, then you need marketing & sales.

Greg

on 12 Jun 08

I completely disagree with this post. 99 of 100 entrepreneurs (as well as successful people in most other circles) surveyed cite at least one extended period in the life of their startup where they worked 80+ hour weeks.

The fact that 37S managed to pull something (and who knows how successful that something really is) off in a fraction of that is no more significant than the fact that some people win lotteries.

OK, I made those numbers up, but I’d bet anything they are more or less accurate.

As someone who has been working the past 4 months to build a web app using personal time and funding, it’s nice to hear success stories like this. It will keep me motivated during the tough times that are sure to happen over the coming months.

From what I’ve noticed, to be successful is not a matter of just being able to mimic a successful person, or follow someone’s formula, but to be able to realize that only yourself can acquire the right cues and bits of data from your environment that will enable you to adapt a custom formula for your own personal success.

Jordan

I’m actually in this exact situation right now.
Currently, I just launched Addoursearch.com

By day, I work as a Web Operations Manager for a B2B publishing company, by afternoon I’m a husband and a father of two little girls under 3yrs. Which pretty much leaves me to development and promotion between the hours of 10pm and 2am at night.

The site is completely out-of-pocket, but luckily I have the experience and the knowledge to do my own design, coding and promotion. Most of the applications used are open source or Free Saas, with the exception of photoshop I bought in College and later upgraded to a full license as a birthday gift.

I do have to give my thanks to 37signals for a lot of inspiration (and also free basecamp for one project :) )
I based many of the decisions I made on the application through lessons learned in your book “Getting Real”. Which I also have to admit I read the free online version.

Hopefully, the application will gain some ground and I can pay back the support to 37signals by buying the book and upgrading my Basecamp account. But for now, all I can do is say thank you for your support. I consider you guys my silent partner in this.

Regards,
Troy

This discussion is closed.

About David

Creator of Ruby on Rails, partner at 37signals, best-selling author, public speaker, race-car driver, hobbyist photographer, and family man.